SpudFiles

you could have for example a servo which moves a ball valve which pilots the QEV...

yup - I thought of that. Seems a bit messy though - a pity as the sprinkler valve method is so simple. With those you get your valve and electric motor to trigger it all in one part.

pigeon wrote:With those you get your valve and electric motor to trigger it all in one part.

That's true.

Here's a thought, do you have access to these?

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For the price of a sprinkler valve you get a 12 gram CO2 firing mechanism... a cheap servo could easily pull the pin...

we do - we use those all the time! Not a bad idea.

What you'd probably do is pull the pin to arm it, and have the servo flick off some sort of catch which is holding the spoon. The pin takes quite a bit of force to pull out.

These are about $50 here in NZ. You're getting the CO2 charger/holder, and a firing mechanism so that's not too bad I guess.

the CO2 coming out of the 12gram thru a tiny pinhole - thats not going to be enough to launch everything is it is? Dont you need it to expand into a larger chamber, and then get dumped quickly through a bigger bore hole to actually launch something?

I would find a way to strike the CO2 capsule open inside a PVC chamber which has a burst disk setup on one end, that would give you a huge bang in a compact package... the downside would be that you're unlikely to be able to make it using off-the-shelf parts

I was just thinking that the easiest way to make these cheap, simple, effective and electronically triggered would be to use a hybrid design and a simple spark igniter to trigger them. Get rid of the valve all together and just put in a foil burst disk between the chamber and the paintball barrel.

so they'd use fuel and ignition, rather than CO2?

pigeon wrote:so they'd use fuel and ignition, rather than CO2?

This is definitely a more practical option, but most fields would classify such devices as pyrotechnics and not allow them.